A Slytherin's Mind
by Shinyzenith
Summary: A glimpse of Daphne's mind as she takes a nightly trip to the library. She's not always the only person there, however...


**A Slytherin's Mind**

Daphne shot up, startled out of her sleep by a frightening sound. It had been a relatively high tone, one that didn't leave your mind after it entered your ear, but kept aggravating you. It was silent in the dorm room though, the loud snore that had echoed there just seconds ago was completely gone by now. She looked over annoyed to the bed to her right.

Pansy, she thought angrily. The girl had the habit of snoring loudly in her sleep. Daphne and Tracey liked to think that was because she had the habit of snorting at everything anyone said, except Draco of course. Not with her sweetheart.

The other girls in the fourth-year Slytherin dorm didn't really have a problem with the loud snores, but Daphne certainly did. She was a light sleeper, and she always forgot to put up protections against outside noise before she went to sleep. Something Tracey, her best friend, enjoyed reminding her of. She often compared her to Blaise, who seemed to do everything absent-mindedly, and was also rather forgetful. Occasionally, after comparing Daphne with him, Tracey would giggle mischievously before telling her she was as bad as Longbottom. At which Daphne would glare, causing Tracey to quickly apologise and not mention it for a few days.

Her waking up wouldn't really be much of a problem if she could get back to sleep. Then she could just apply a silencing charm around her bed, and go to sleep again until the morning. But unfortunately, she couldn't. For some reason it was impossible for her to go back to sleep after waking up at night. She sometimes wondered why that was, but hadn't found an answer yet. She had gotten the suggestion from Tracey to take a sleeping potion. And while the idea certainly had merit, and it would definitely be a great help, Daphne was reluctant to actually do that. She felt as if it would be like admitting defeat against whatever it was that caused her to be unable to sleep, and if there was anything Daphne Greengrass didn't do then it was admitting defeat. No, then she would just take the sleepless nights. She preferred that over losing a battle that didn't even really exist. And it probably was a battle against her mind, if she thought about it.

Truth was, it didn't really matter anymore either, she had gotten used to getting very little sleep by now. She also had the luck that it apparently didn't affect her appearance negatively, like it did to other people when they got too little sleep. Though at this Tracey would argue that she wouldn't know because she _always_ got too little sleep. But in general, Daphne didn't mind too much, as long as she managed to get in enough sleep to be able to stay awake during class, she didn't think there was a real problem.

Deciding that she might as well get out of bed, she stretched and put her feet into her shoes, which stood ready on the left side of her bed. She took the few necessary steps towards the dorm door, and walked out.

The Slytherin common room was deserted. Nobody was there, and judging from the general cleanliness of the room, the house-elves had already visited to clean up. She slowly made her way towards to exit, making sure not to make any sound. One of the new prefects this year was a notoriously light sleeper. Which she had experienced for herself on the first night back at Hogwarts in September.

It hadn't taken her long to come up with a routine of what to do when she woke up at night. Already during her first week at Hogwarts as a first year, she had started to sneak into the library to read. She usually just picked out a book at random, and read that until the morning, when she would greet her friends at breakfast. They had long since stopped asking where she had come from when she suddenly appeared in the Great Hall.

Of course, she had also been caught a fair few times, especially in the beginning she had had trouble to avoid Filch and Snape. Though Snape, of course, let her off without much of a fuss. He didn't like punishing Slytherins. But she had quickly become an expert on how to avoid encountering any staff members or prefects. In the rare case that she did run into an authority figure, she now had ways to hide herself, so they would just walk past her without her knowing. Though she had learned through experience that Snape wasn't very easily fooled. She always had to apply several spells to evade his attention.

But this particular night seemed to be rather calm. She was walking along a second floor corridor, and hadn't yet encountered a single soul, whether they be dead or alive. She took this as a good sign and continued her path at a slightly faster pace.

Unusually, for once she had a book in mind she wanted to read. During their last Charms class, Flitwick had made a reference to an advanced Charms book, that could be found in the Hogwarts library. It had sounded interesting to her, so she had decided she would try to read it. She hoped it wasn't in the restricted section, which was a very good possibility seeing as it was 'advanced', but she hoped not. Of course, it wouldn't stop her if it was, it would just cause unnecessary complications and be generally inconvenient. Like requiring her to be a lot more careful when grabbing and opening it.

Dumbledore had once caught her trying to do exactly that, in her third year, though in the end he didn't punish her. Just gave her a warning and sent her off to bed. Though when she arrived back in the Slytherin common room, she had noticed that somehow a slip of paper with the title of the book had ended up in her robe pocket. It also had a signature on it. A signature of a rather long name, in a rather loopy handwriting. She could still clearly make out the name. Albus Dumbledore.

This had certainly given her some newfound respect for the headmaster. He really wasn't as bad as the likes of Draco made him out to be. Though she had to admit that she still found his love for Muggles rather distasteful.

She shook further distracting thoughts from her head as she approached the library. Slipping inside, she looked around and prepared for what would most likely be a several hour long search for the right book.

* * *

_I actually have further ideas for this. I could make it at least a two-shot, but I'm short on time at the moment. I might add to it eventually though._


End file.
